Splashbacks and upstands in Victoria

Yes. Victoria is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SW1E, SW1P. It is worked on our central London run, along with the rest of Westminster. Underground loading has a height restriction, and a van with an A-frame on it is taller than the driver remembers. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. Handling is where these pieces get damaged. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. Boxed risers break the run into returns, and every return is a separate piece with its own mitred corner. Cut from the same slab run as the tops. Recirculating extraction means the hob often sits under a wall unit rather than an external wall - confirm the hob cut-out clearances to the units above, they are tighter than a standard layout.

Victoria Street and Vauxhall Bridge Road are red routes with no loading in the day, so deliveries are early morning into a booked bay. New buildings have a service yard with a height barrier and a dedicated goods lift that has to be reserved days ahead. Sign-in at the gate, a permit on the dash and a named contact are usually wanted before anything comes off the van. Splashback panels are lighter than a worktop and far more awkward, because a tall thin piece has to be carried on edge and cannot be tilted to clear a turn. Joint positions follow from that.

Not particularly, and it would be easy to pretend otherwise. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop templating. That is a statement about the local housing rather than about the work. It is quoted, cut and fitted exactly the same way here as anywhere else on the patch. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Ordered later from a different batch, the match is not reliable exactly where the pieces meet. Same batch, same run, same day. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Socket and switch positions have to be final before templating, because a cut-out in the wrong place means a new piece. Siliconed to the worktop, never grouted.

A galley puts the sink on one side and the hob on the other, which spreads the cut-outs across two pieces instead of weakening one. Long runs almost never take a single panel, so the joint positions want agreeing before anything is templated. Joint placement is a decision, not an accident. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

Anything that has to stay accessible, a stopcock, a gas meter, a riser panel, is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Where the wall cannot be made good, setting the stone deliberately proud on a subframe with a shadow gap reads as a detail rather than a bad fit. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. The riser boxing must be finished in its final form and any access panel positions agreed before the template, since the stone is set out around them. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. Full-height panels need the wall made good first, which is another trade and another timescale. The wall has to be ready.